


Caged

by amorluzymelodia



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, PTSD, anxiety attack, non-con, past trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-23
Updated: 2017-07-23
Packaged: 2018-12-06 02:16:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11590872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amorluzymelodia/pseuds/amorluzymelodia
Summary: Request: Imagine being there for Sam while he suffers from PTSD after being in the cage with LuciferA/N: I set this when Sam has his soul back, but after he is hallucinating Lucifer. After Cas takes that on for him, just in case the timeline wasn’t clear.Also, I'm tagging non-con because Sam mentions something about Lucifer making him do things he didn't want to do. While I don't go into detail, I know that could be triggering so I thought it best to tag it.





	Caged

There wasn’t a lot that you hadn’t seen as a hunter. Blood and guts didn’t bother you, and though vomit wasn’t particularly enjoyable, you could bare it, especially when some punk-ass demon decided to basically remake _The Exorcist_. You’d seen people and monsters alike beheading, dismembered, tortured, the works. While most of it washed off of you with a shower after the hunt, there were things that no amount of washing could cleanse. A child killed in a hunt, a family being torn apart, certain monsters that just couldn’t be shaken. It was those times that gave hunters their nightmares, the trauma that no normal person should have to endure. When things like werewolves and vampires become considered normal, it means that the truly horrible shit is…beyond imagination.

That’s why you and the Winchesters clicked so well. You’d been raised in the life, like them, and had dealt with monsters and torture and death since you were a kid. While that meant you had an abnormally thick skin, it also meant that you’d been exposed to things no human being should ever have to see. And you’d be lying if you said that didn’t get to you. You’d worked with Sam and Dean from pretty early on, experiencing things like the death of their father, the release of thousands of demons, and of course…the literal Apocalypse coming to pass. You were there when Dean went to Hell, and when he got out, when Sam went off the rails with Ruby and the demon blood, through the Horsemen and when the Winchesters realized they were the vessels for Michael and Lucifer themselves. It was probably the worst day of your life when Sam jumped into that hole, trapping Lucifer—and himself—in the cage.

Your relationship with Sam has always been closer than with Dean. Dean was like your brother, and you would do anything for him, but Sam…there was just something there that you couldn’t put your finger on. It wasn’t even purely sexual—although you’d be crazy if you weren’t attracted to him—or even romantic. It was something deeper than that, a connection you hadn’t felt with anyone else. In fact, Sam had echoed your thoughts the night before he said yes to Lucifer, telling you that he felt the same way, and that it was one of the hardest things he had to do; saying goodbye to you. Though he assured you that he was doing this for you too, so that you could live in safety, so that you wouldn’t die bloody and screaming like so many in both of your lives.

Of course, you’d never imagined you would get him back after that, so when he showed up without a soul—not that you’d known that at the time—you’d hardly believed it. Though the soulless version of Sam was different, less compassionate, less…real. That’s how you knew something was off, even earlier than Dean had. Because Sam wasn’t the affectionate, caring moose you’d known before he’d jumped in the cage, and when he got his soul back, it had you in tears the first time he looked at you, and you saw that light back in his eyes.

Although that light faded the more the wall that Death had put in his mind came crumbling down. It tore you apart to see Lucifer tormenting him—even if it was just a hallucination. You knew it was real for him, and that being the only one to see it was making it that much harder. It killed you that you couldn’t help him carry that burden. There was one day, when he was in the hospital, having been awake for days on end, and his body was literally shutting down, that you thought it might actually be the end for him.

You were leaning against the headboard, with his head in your lap, flinching every time Lucifer did something. You just kept running your hands through his hair, hoping to comfort him in any way possible.

“Just kill me…” He’d whispered, whether to you or Lucifer, you didn’t know, but it broke your heart either way. “Just…make it stop.” He sobbed and you just held him tighter, trying not to let your own tears fall.

It was nothing short of a miracle when Cas showed up, and took on the hallucinations for himself. Though you loved Castiel as well, it was a relief like you’d never felt before, when Sam’s eyes unclouded and the color returned to his cheeks finally. He slept for almost twenty-four hours that first day out of the hospital, but you didn’t sleep a wink, just watching the steady rise and fall of his chest, crying and reveling in the peaceful look on his sleeping face.

Of course, that peace didn’t last. That’s the thing about trauma—especially mental trauma—it leaves scars, deep, ugly and ever present. Scars that don’t ever fully heal, that bring with them nightmares, anxiety, and fear. But so often they get hidden, only to be seen by those who have them. So you knew that while Sam insisted he was getting better, there would still be some fallout to come. Though he was very good at hiding his PTSD—as most hunters were, though the Winchesters seemed to have it down to a science—there were times when he would slip up. He would flinch at a loud noise, his hands would shake when someone brought up Lucifer or the archangels, or you’d hear him throwing up or having a panic attack in the middle of the night, though he denied it every time.

Mostly you would pretend you didn’t know it was happening, just rub his back until he fell asleep, hug him a bit tighter to you, or turn of his alarm so he could sleep a bit longer, so he could skip is morning run. While Sam was usually the one who wanted to talk about his feelings between the two brothers, you knew he wanted to protect you from this, to keep that part of his life separate from what he had with you, and you didn’t want to take that from him, because you understood. In this life, you needed to separate the good and the bad, or the bad would swallow you whole.

However, there was one night when he couldn’t hide it, when it couldn’t be kept separate anymore. The two of you had been sharing a bed, or even getting your own room in the hotels for a while now—having made your relationship official a while ago—so when you woke up and noticed that Sam’s side of the bed was cold, you knew something was wrong. The bathroom was empty, and in the small hotel you figured there was only one other place he would be. You found him in the impala, curled up in the backseat, his head between his knees. He was hyperventilating, sobbing without tears, but when he jumped and looked up at you as you opened the door, you saw that his eyes were bloodshot and puffy, which meant he’d been crying earlier and had used up all his tears. That was a clear indication that tonight had been particularly bad.

“Hey,” you said quietly, sliding in next to him slowly. “It’s just me.”  

Sam just stared at you for a long moment, and you knew better than to touch him right now. He’d never really opened up about what Lucifer did to him in the cage, or during the hallucinations, but you knew he would flinch away from you if you tried to touch him too quickly. Finally, after a long moment he fell against you, squeezing you tightly around the waist like you were the only thing keeping him anchored to Earth. Sometimes you wondered if you were.

“Shh, it’s alright. You’re safe, you’re okay.” you kept consoling him quietly, running your hands lightly up and down his back and through his hair until his breathing slowed and his sobs faded into hiccups, and then nothing at all.

Finally, he just sat there, holding you but you knew that he needed to calm his mind now that his body was in control. There were times when you’d caught him dissociating, staring at nothing but you knew that was part of the trauma, that he was going numb to deal with what had happened. So you sat there and waited for him to speak.

“It’s worse at night.” He croaked after a moment, his voice hoarse and ragged. “Sometimes I wake up and I forget where I am, and I think he’s in the shadows, waiting to jump at me.” He took a deep breath, his head buried in your hair. “Or sometimes I get a chill on my neck and it reminds me of him. He was always so—so _close_ down there, in the cage.”

“You’re not in the cage anymore, Sam.” You whispered, still stroking his hair, wet with sweat. “You’re safe now.”

He nodded and moved so he was leaning back against your chest, and you wrapped your arms around him. “I don’t _feel_ safe anymore. I feel so broken, torn apart and laid out to be picked apart. After everything…everything he did to me. Everything he made me see, made me _do_.”

“That wasn’t your fault,” you said passionately, needing him to believe it.          

“I said yes, Y/N.” he whispered. “I made that decision myself, I _let_ him in…how is that not my fault?”

You sat up and turned him so he was looking at you, and you put your hands on his face, still red and puffy from crying and still wet with sweat.

“Because you, Sam Winchester, are _good_. You said yes for no other reason than to save everyone else. You said yes to him _once_ , and only once. So that means everything after that first yes, wasn’t allowed. You didn’t give him permission for _anything_ else.”

Sam just shook his head, and you knew his self-loathing was kicking in and you wanted to put a stop to that right away.

“Sam, look at me,” you said and tilted his chin up until he met your gaze. “You are the bravest, strongest, kindest man I have ever known. What he did, was _not_. _Your_. _Fault_.”

He started crying again, and you pulled his head to your chest, letting him get it out.

“The hallucinations were the worst,” he said after a he had calmed down a bit. I could deal with the nightmares, but seeing him everywhere, everyday…it wrecked me. I didn’t think I could make it through that.”

“But you did, Sam. You’re here, and he can’t hurt you anymore.”

He laughed sardonically. “Try telling my brain that at three in the morning when I wake up in a cold sweat.” He looked around the cab of the impala, running a hand over the seat lovingly. “I come out here when it gets bad. It’s the only place I feel safe, like he can’t get to me. Dean and I didn’t have a real _home_ growing up but this…this car became our home. The possibility to just drive and get away, the feeling of freedom, but still being secure inside the car itself…it’s something I’ve never felt anywhere else.” He paused and then looked at you, putting a hand on your cheek. “Except with you. You make me feel safe, loved. I felt so…caged, my whole life. First with the mold Dad wanted me to fit, then at Stanford, hiding from everyone. Then with Azazel saying I was chosen and then with…” he choked a bit. “with Lucifer…but here, with you I feel like I’m…free. Free to be myself, free to be open, to hurt, to talk without fear.”

It was your turn to cry, and you pressed your lips to his gently, at a loss for words, but still wanting to convey how much you loved him. He seemed to get the message.

“I wish I could take back everything that’s happened.” You told him, wrapping your arms around his neck and he pulled you against him. “I wish I could take away the pain, and the hurt, and the awful things that you’ve been through. I wish I could stop it hurting.”

Sam put a hand on your hair and took a deep breath. “You do more than you think, Y/N.”

You pulled back and kissed him again, noticing that he was still shaking slightly, but it was just his hands now. So you took both of his hands in yours and put them over your heart, so he could feel it beating.

“Then you’ll have me, Sam. As long as you need, for whatever you need. You don’t have to go this alone. You aren’t broken, do you hear me? You’re strong, and brave, and he _did_ not ruin you.  And I will keep telling you that until it gets through that thick skull of yours.”

He actually let out a small laugh and a sad smile and that made your heart soar. He pulled you close and the two of you just held each other, listening to one another’s heartbeats, taking comfort in one another and you swore, no matter what, that you would protect Sam Winchester from ever getting hurt again, and you had no doubt that you would do it. Because if there was anything he and his brother had taught you, it was that love was stronger than any evil the world could put out.


End file.
